[governance] Fwd: [india-gii] why strict Net neutrality works best: simple beats complex

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

An interesting point of view - worth discussing for sure.

—srs

> Begin forwarded message:
> 
> From: Arun Mehta <arun.mehta at gmail.com>
> Subject: [india-gii] why strict Net neutrality works best: simple beats complex
> Date: 19 May 2015 6:41:51 am IST
> To: "india-gii at india-gii.org" <india-gii at india-gii.org>
> 
> The IT industry has little respect for its veterans. Like they say, if you don't learn from history, you are condemned to repeat it. A brief history lesson, therefore. I presented this as an invited paper at the Pune conference the ITU organized,  called "Beyond the Internet" about 5 years ago, let me know if you would like a copy.
> 
> The development of the Internet began roughly around the same time that the telecom companies and the ITU began work on developing X.25 and X.400 standards and technology, analogous to TCP-IP and Internet email. Even with the weight of the ITU and all the governments and telcos of the world behind them, X.25 and X.400 have virtually disappeared, only surviving in niches. Why? Because they were far more complex.
> 
> Ethernet beat token ring and all its competitors, again, because it was the simplest: A node that wants to transmit first listens, and if there is nothing on the line, goes ahead and transmits. If two nodes both decide to start transmitting at the same time and cause a collision, they wait a random amount of time each, so as to be unlikely to collide again. WiFi did spectacularly well as a wireless technology even with garbage spectrum, because it essentially implements Ethernet in the air.
> 
> Internet telephony beats conventional again because of simplicity. If a conventional phone call costs you 100 Rupees, less than 1 Rupee is the actual cost of carrying the call.The cost of calculating how long you spoke, from which to which number, at what time, on what plan, then sending you the bill, fighting with you over the amount, sending goons to collect... is of course at least an order of magnitude greater. And then, certainly not least, is the cost of a Shahrukh Khan or equivalent to help sell it to you.
> 
> Any violation of net neutrality adds to complexity. Once you let the marketing guys call the shots, the complexity only grows. Any change you implement involves changing the software, which becomes bloated and buggy. This is why I believe that strict net neutrality will win.
> 
> Arun Mehta
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